Fresh Coffee - Farmhouse Organic from Counter Culture

My mother visited yesterday and wanted to go to Whole Foods since her town does not have a grocer with a similar theme. I enjoy going there so I was looking forward to the excursion too. While in the coffee isle she asked for recommendations and I explained to look for a freshness date on the bag. She picked up a bag of 365 Brazilian something (store brand for Whole Foods) and asked where the date was on the bag. I could not find one. I picked up a bag from the Counter Culture selections to show her an example.

This bag I picked up was Counter Culture Farmhouse Organic Blend with a date stamp reading 12/12/11. I explained this was very fresh coffee from a reliable source and the bag would remain fresh for coffee through the end of the month and maybe longer - certainly long enough to consume the 12 oz bag. The $1 off sale price sealed the deal for her. They smell nice (fresh coffee usually does) but I can't find any information about the blend composition on the bag.

A quick visit to their web site turned up this interesting back story:

"Three years ago, on the heels of introducing new,farm-specific packaging featuring original artwork for each coffee, we made the decision to sell only coffees in their seasonal prime and added each coffee's harvest date(s) to its packaging. While this made our selection fresher than ever, it also made choosing the freshest coffees – those most recently harvested – require a bit of research on behalf of the customer. farmhouse, akin to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box from a favorite farm, makes choosing the freshest coffees easier than ever. By choosing farmhouse, you're choosing the freshest coffees available; simple as that."

They do give the blend breakdown for this bag at least as being 65% CENFROCAFE, Jaen, and San Ignacio Peru along with 35% Shilicho Ethiopia, Sidama.

So according to the information in the back story this coffee has a theme - being the freshest coffee available - which coincidentally was the reason I recommended it to my mother based on freshness. The best part is thanks to her generosity I have a sample of these beans I will try  this weekend!

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